SD1502. Mary Russell Mitford to William Cox Bennett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 271–272 (in part).
[Three Mile Cross]
[6 September 1851]
… Mrs Browning talked of a Mr Reade—a follower I take it of their own bad school[,] she likes nothing that is clear—thought little of Longfellow—saw nothing in the Bugle Song– By the way can you tell me anything of her? I went to London on purpose to meet her—saw her nearly every day—we were excellent friends—& the result is that from the moment we parted I have never heard a syllable of any one of them. It is likely that I offended Mr Kenyon by refusing two invitations—but what I have done to be sent to a sort of epistolary Coventry by the whole party I can’t conjecture– Wrote to Mrs Browning after I got home—& so it shall remain unless she writes to me– I shall make no quarrel of it but I have been too much attached to Mrs Browning to pass into a common acquaintance or a literary friend—that coterie of authors to whom her husband belongs is the worst Society in London. I never would have anything to do with it, & that I suppose is my real sin. In the meanwhile I have plenty to do here God knows. We must move next week—I mean the week in which you will get this note …
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection.
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